The Ginza Tokyo flagship store and corporate headquarters of Hermès was built by Renzo Piano in collaboration with Takenaka Corporation between 1998 and 2001.

Renzo Piano monumental tower rises a light, static and rigorous forms, covered by a glass facade that, because of the light that filters through translucent slabs and densely gridded to compose, assumes the aspect of an immense symbolic torch chaos dominates the glittering heart of Tokyo.

With the attempt to construct a building “quiet”, a serene oasis in the river in spate of capital, the Italian architect imagines their second Japanese, the first being the Kansai airport, with the dimension of a lightweight, consistent with the sense of the ephemeral that is in the Pacific Ocean, in that sense of lightness that recognizes provisional in Japanese culture as a kind of sublimated survival, but while performing another “grand gesture technology.”

The Concept
The design intent of the architect Renzo Piano, was that of a “magic lantern” inspired by traditional Japanese lanterns. In the front, during the day, it gives a translucent idea of ​​what lies beyond fuzzy objects and events through the thickness of the glass block. At night, the entire building is glowing from within.

Source: wikiarquitectura.com